Cover Sheet

Brief Summary of Fountaindale

Over the past four years, Fountaindale has continued to make changes in our practice in order to become more environmentally friendly. Our staff and students demonstrate their passion for Environmental Literacy on a daily basis. Our teachers continue to design and implement meaningful lessons that engage students in outdoor or environmental learning. Our wetlands have grown into a well established habitat for a wide variety of species including several hawks that enjoy the space for hunting. We continue to monitor and clean Hamilton Run which runs adjacent to our school grounds.

"Student as worker, teacher as coach" has been a way of life at Fountaindale for years. We believe that when you help students to take ownership of their learning, amazing thing happen. The Fountaindale Green Team has been a great outlet for our students that have a passion for the environment. These 4th and 5th grade students have planned school wide initiatives to help our student population make positive change. They have led recycling challenges, developed the schoolyard habitat, and planned family field trips to local outdoor spaces.

Our staff has continued to seek out professional development opportunities to grow in the area of environmental literacy. We have regularly sent teachers to the MAEOE conference both as attendees and presenters. Several of our staff became certified to lead WOW: Wonders of the Wetlands trainings and help other teachers through professional development opportunities. Not only does our staff seek out external professional development opportunities, we also work with each other to grow our understanding of environmental literacy. From 2015-2016, our staff engaged in discussion through an Environmental Literacy Vertical Team. Each grade level was represented and we were able to establish school wide expectations.

We continue to build partnerships with local environmental agencies and activists. We regularly seek out advice from our community connections and bring them into our classrooms as educational resources. We are currently working with other teachers and administration from another elementary school to develop a plan for teacher professional development in Environmental Literacy. This collaborative effort is a partnership with Eastern Elementary School and our central office staff.

Top Five Accomplishments - 2018 Recertification

Growing Naturalists Summer Camp - Since 2014, Fountaindale has offered a free county wide summer camp open to all K-5 students within Washington County focused on students learning about the environment and taken action to protect it.

Fountaindale Green Team - 4th and 5th grade students lead a group that meets every Friday afternoon to plan and implement environmentally friendly projects at Fountaindale.

​2015 Tawes Youth Award for a Clean Environment - Fountaindale's work in developing a wetland and outdoor learning space was recognized by the Maryland Department of the Environment as a positive way to get students involved in environmental education.

MAEOE Presentations 2018 - During the 2018 MAEOE Conference, Fountaindale shared two separate presentations; the first was an overview of the work that has taken place at Fountaindale and strategies that we use to build relationships within the community, the second presentation was focused on the integration of environmental literacy into the Library Media curriculum.

Environmental Literacy Professional Development - In the summer of 2017, Fountaindale was awarded a grant that enabled an opportunity to send three teachers to a week-long Chesapeake Classroom PD opportunity; the training was so well received that we applied again and will be sending six teachers during the summer of 2018.